


Boxes

by Pebblysand



Category: Without a Trace
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pebblysand/pseuds/Pebblysand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little snapshot of Jack and Sam during the affair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boxes

** Boxes **

 

She stands on her tiptoes to retrieve a box from the storage room’s top shelf, struggling to keep all the others from cascading down to the floor. 10 pm and the heat of the day is digging holes into her shoulders, if there is a way she’ll make it to her car tonight without the air conditioning, she hasn’t found it yet. She needs to move somewhere like England or Ireland, somewhere it doesn’t ever get hot or cold and where nothing ever really happens.

 

“Let me get that,”

 

She turns at the sound of his voice and smiles, shoulders tensing as his arm brushes against hers when he walks by, “thanks,” she mutters and can’t help but yawn.

 

He pulls down the box and places the file she hands him inside, pushes it back up.

 

“You’re exhausted, you should go home,” he says, concern tainting his voice. They’re standing close; close enough for her to recognize the faint, tired, scent of his cologne on his shirt. She almost misses it - she’s so used to it by now, almost all the stuff in her apartment smells like him. They’ve been blurring the lines of how close is appropriately close for over a month now and she’s not even sure where the old limits used to stand anymore.

 

“I wanted to file this in first,”

 

“Couldn’t wait ‘till morning?”

 

“Filing helps,” she says. They turn out dead and thinking they have a place in here, somewhere to be remembered, helps her find sleep. She tells him this and she realizes she’s been telling him a lot of things lately, a lot of things that she’d never thought she’d tell anyone; it made him smile when he stayed the night for the first time last week and discovered how obsessive she could be about her morning coffee.

 

“You going home?”

 

He’s staring now, staring at her. “Not yet, no.”

 

She realizes he needs her even more than she needs him. And yeah, maybe it’s just for sex. Maybe. She thinks it doesn’t bother her as much as it should.

 

“We fought,” he explains, simply, honestly, his voice gruff and so very Jack, tie loosened and first button undone.

 

Maria. Hannah. Kate. Sometimes she feels guilty; he always does. He pretends this is not an affair. Once, it’s a one night stand. Twice, it’s a mistake that won’t happen again. Three, four, five times, it’s definitively an affair but he would never, ever call it that. She likes to put names on things, tags on boxes. She’s his mistress and they’re having an affair, she sometimes feels guilty but he always does and hopefully, if at least one of them realizes how wrong this is, they may be able to stop it.

 

She nods but doesn’t ask him if he wants to talk about it because certain things are definitely not within the borders of this relationship. It was awkward enough to have Maria show up at the office the week before and ask him to introduce her. She steals a glance at the door to check it’s closed, leans in against him and lets their lips meet. His body responds immediately, pulling her closer, his hand against the small of her back and the skin of her stomach when he snakes it under her shirt.

 

“Wait,” she says, “we can’t, not here.”

 

There’s a look on his face that hates these boundaries, because of work, because of Maria, because of him. He puts a strand of blond hair back behind her ear, smiles at her face and how young and beautiful she is, the box people might put them in makes him sick. They’re nothing like that. “I’ll follow you in five minutes, then,” he smiles.

 

She smiles, too.

 

“Sam,” he says. She makes it to the door, turns around, hand around the handle. “I don’t want you to think I’m using you.”

 

Her head shakes, smile still on her face, “whatever this is, Jack, we’re using each other.”

 

If they weren’t, she wouldn’t be able to put this in a box anymore, and that might be a problem. 

**Author's Note:**

> There used to be a time when I was fourteen years old, pretending to be sixteen (I obviously thought people would take more seriously), writing WaT fic on ff.net and French forums when I came back from school. I honestly can't really decide if it was entirely pathetic or kind of cute ^^. Anyway, I was in the process of cleaning my hard-drive and I found an unfinished little piece of something and decided to give it a try.
> 
> I don't even know if people still read WaT fic but if you do, please don't hesitate to leave a review!


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